It Was You
by AdriRin
Summary: One-shot, after End of Time. Rose, while with 10.5, finally remembers that the Doctor had gone to see her before back in the snow of 2005, when he was dying. This was written to soothe my aching shipper heart; hopefully it soothes yours too.


**(A/N: So this started out as a random short one-shot that I honestly never intended to write. It just kinda came out one day while I was chatting to my friend, crying about**** End of Time, which I had just watched. I was just thinking about Rose, and how the Doctor actually sees her for the REAL first time (in her life) face to face, in the snow of 2005. And then I suddenly wished she'd remember it in the future one day, because only then can I be a little bit less sad. A little bit. :'( And thus this was born, when I imagined her living with TenToo and finally making sense of that little memory.)**

Snow was falling silently on the deserted street, settling into huge, fluffy mounds in every nook and cranny. It was Christmas Eve, and the street and houses were quiet, cold, and dim, with not a soul in sight. The streetlights were few and yellow, and the silence seemed to hang over everything like a lulling blanket. Not even the roar of a car or the hooting of an owl disrupted the quiet, until suddenly down the street there was a burst of laughter and the tinkering of an opening door as Rose led the Doctor out, holding tight onto his hand. She danced out into the thick blanket of white on the ground, laughing as she pulled him along. "Come on!" she said merrily, tugging on his sleeve. "It's finally snowing!"

"And it's peppering your hair," the Doctor replied, reaching over to brush a few flakes away. "What's the use of a hood if you won't wear it?"

Rose just looked up at the sky and sighed contentedly as she breathed in deeply through her nose. "Ahhh. It's beautiful."

The Doctor beamed, as if he were somehow responsible for the beautiful snow. "And this time, it's not ash! Finally, some real snow for me. Real snow!" Rose laughed at the excitement in his voice.

"Don't have that often, do you, a peaceful Christmas? With no alien invasions, no crazy stuff, just good 'ol Christmas." Rose gave him a coy smile as she swung back and forth, and he wrinkled his face in response to think hard about it.

"Weeell….nope, nope, you're right, don't think I have those too often."

"Then I guess you should enjoy this one while it lasts, yeah?"

The Doctor looked down. Rose was giving him one of her huge, beaming smiles, and on impulse, he walked behind her and folded her up in his large brown coat. Just as naturally, she leaned her head back against his chest until she could feel his single heart beating through his skin. "You're probably right," he said softly.

Rose closed her eyes. She'd always feel so warm and safe with him behind her, his arms wrapped tightly around hers. Sometimes… it almost felt like he had never left.

Bad Wolf Bay. That was one of the times in her life she knew she would always hate thinking about, and mentally she tossed it out of her head. Now was not the time for remembering those days at all.

"What are you thinking about?" His voice drifted down to her, genuinely interested.

Rose shook her head and pulled out of his embrace. "Nothing. Just that the smell of turkey is getting strong and I'm getting hungry." She gazed up into his face, trying to smile. As she looked at him, however, it felt like another memory was trying to click into her mind. Something vague was there, hovering in her head, and for a second she suddenly had the briefest glimpse of an image. Her eyes opened wide.

_It's like him now…he's standing against a wall._

"Oh?" The Doctor was raising his eyebrows. "Should we go in then? Your mum probably could use some help, knowing her."

Rose closed her eyes, a strange sensation filling her as the long-forgotten memory struggled to extract itself again. There was just something about him standing there, against a wall, in his brown coat and his hair slightly damp from snow – that was so familiar.

"Rose?"

"Doctor…wait."

She held her hand out to stop him from approaching her, because now she felt so sure that there was a memory of something _somewhere_, struggling to tell her something, struggling to be found again. A memory that she had never thought was important, that she had long ago discarded because it meant nothing to her before. It was like the faces of people she'd see at the market, but that she would forget the next instant because they were just passerbys she didn't know.

But now it was making sense… now there was that feeling of knowledge, familiarity. Something about the Doctor she was supposed to remember? What though…?

"Rose, what's wrong?" The Doctor sounded concerned now, and Rose blinked open her eyes.

"I… It's - it's nothing. I just thought I suddenly remembered…something. I don't know what." Rose tilted her face slightly, studying the Doctor as he stood there, taking it in. God, it was something so familiar, she could just feel the thought tugging insistently at the back of her mind.

"What do you think it is?" He eyed her curiously, in the way he always did.

"Doctor…" Her voice trailed off. "Forgive me if this sounds crazy, but…did we ever meet in the snow before? I mean, not that day after the Sycorax came, but besides that."

The Doctor pursed his lips. "I don't recall anything. What's this about, Rose? I thought you were hungry?" He gave her a grin, the kind that creases his eyes.

There, again. Another flash of an image of the Doctor, her Doctor, as he leaned heavily against a wall, one arm supporting himself, a smile creasing his eyes as he looked at her.

When was this? Another Christmas… or was it New Years? It was years ago. 2005. New Years Eve… Before she had ever known the Doctor, before those shop window dummies.

Rose froze, looking up at the Doctor without blinking. He stared back at her, uncomprehending. "Are you all right?"

"Doctor…." Rose started slowly, "when I think about it…meeting in the warehouse wasn't the first time I met you, was it?" She was staring at him with really wide eyes now, seeing him in a new light, as she remembered the man she had seen years ago in this exact same place.

He scratched his head. "_Weeell_, I did send you that red bike when you were 12 but I don't think you saw me…And you really aren't supposed to know that anyhow."

Rose shook her head. "No no, hang on. I swear…I can remember now. It was you, just like you are right now, not like…you know. With the leather jacket, when I first met you, in that warehouse. No, instead you looked exactly this way." She reached up to gently touch his specs. "I think I saw you… before I was supposed to see you. Didn't I!" She suddenly had such a tone of discovery and delight in her voice. "It was New Years Eve, 2005, and it was snowing….and I had just left mum! And then there was this man standing in the shadows behind me. I talked to him for a moment. He was alone. He looked like you." She stopped, scrutinizing his face. "He WAS you. I'm sure of it. Same brown coat, same hair, everything."

Perplexed, the Doctor ran a hand through his hair on impulse. "Well…but I never…"

The pictures were becoming clearer now, like a veil was slowly lifting. Rose gazed off into the distance, trying to remember, murmuring as everything started to come back. "You were…leaning against the wall. I heard a groan, like…like you were in pain. We talked….but you MUST have known who I was by then! You must have, since you were already you know, _you_…but…you didn't say that you knew me. You didn't say anything much, really. I thought you were drunk!" Rose laughed, poking his chest with her finger. "All I really remember you saying was…well, you told me that I was going to have a really great year." She broke into a wide smile. "You told me that, and then that was the year I met you."

He grinned back and reached for her hand. "And then we had chips."

A warm feeling bubbled up in Rose's stomach. "Yes, we did. But... Doctor, can I ask, why were you all alone? When could that have been? Was it….after…oh. Bad Wolf Bay…?"

The Doctor looked down at Rose, his smile suddenly just a little sadder. "I didn't go there after Bad Wolf Bay, Rose."

Rose frowned. "But you were just standing there, like you were visiting me for a…for a last time, or something. I dunno. In fact, why were you standing there, hunched over, like something hurt? You just looked …sort of sad, and tired. Like you were in pain, but you were hiding it…Ohh, but of course! Of course you were hiding it, now that I think about it." Rose reached for the Doctor's other hand, so that she was now holding both. "You would do that. And since I didn't know you then, not at all, I just thought you were some drunk bloke on the street. I was so clueless then!" There were the mixed notes of genuine worry and frustration in her voice now, and consternation in her eyes as she looked at him. "What – what was wrong, Doctor?"

"It's not your fault, Rose. You didn't know me yet then, so of course you'd have no idea. I _was_ just some random bloke." A side of his mouth twitched upwards.

Rose sighed. "Was it a future…you? Like after I was gone? Have you ever…gone to see me back in time…"

"I…" The Doctor hesitated. "I haven't yet, Rose."

Rose leaned her head forward against his chest, and his arm instinctively went to wrap around her shoulders. Nothing made sense, then, Rose thought.

"Doctor…" she finally said, "Why… why did it sound like you were leaving?"

The Doctor said nothing, only looked down at her, sadness darkening his eyes. He had a guess.

Her next words were muffled, timid, as she slowly came to the same conclusion as him. "Doctor… if you were him… still back in that world, with everyone else – would you have gone back to see me once more if, you know. If you thought you could never do that again?"

He answered without a skip of a beat. "Of course."

"Then….then do you think…" There was a long pause, and then Rose's voice seemed to break. "Do you think that's what it was. Were you…._dying_…"

"Oh, Rose!" The Doctor gently pulled her back to look into her eyes, which were now pink and wet with tears. He chuckled, trying to lift her spirits. "Well….I'd like to think I wasn't! And I'm not. I'm right here, happy and alive, aren't I? Always by your side?" He gave her one of those big, wide smiles filled with inexplicable happiness, and wrapped her up in one of his huge hugs, but that just seemed to make her cry more, and he let go again, suddenly unsure. His shoulders slumped down. "Rose…"

Rose shook her head, trying to wipe the tears off of her face. "I mean it, Doctor."

"Well…okay. Yes. I suppose if it had come around someday, and yes, it would have had to come around someday, then… yes….I would have gone back to see you _all_, if I could." He tried to offer her another smile, and lifted up her chin with a finger. "Of course I would."

Rose groaned. "Then – then that's what it was?"

"Well – "

"But you….you were all alone! Oh….Doctor! Oh god I wish I knew!" She started sobbing again, and threw her arms tightly around his neck. "I mean, I could have…!"

"Shh…at least you're here with me, right?" The Doctor closed his eyes, his hands patting down her back gently. "And look, he knows you're here with me, right where I need you. And I'm sure he knows how you feel, too. He won't blame you for not suspecting anything, because of course you didn't even know him then. He…I… wouldn't have expected any differently, Rose."

Rose was still crying softly, feeling so sorry for the poor, lonely man in her arms. Somehow he would always be sad and lonely in some way, no matter how hard she tried. "Doctor, Donna wasn't even with you. Nobody was. And I could have….y'know. I could have made it less lonely for you, just a bit, just so you wouldn't have been in that snow alone. I coulda stayed, or somethin'."

"But, you see, he knows you'd have done that, if you could have. I'm sure it was enough for him to see you, to make you smile. And he knows that at least I still have your hand to hold." It was almost as if the Doctor knew what she was thinking, and perhaps he did, as he rocked her gently back and forth. "I'm not alone. And to be honest… that's good enough for him."

As Rose turned to look at him with her teary eyes, he knew what he said was true. He felt so touched that she was crying for him, and thankful that she would always be so loving; he didn't feel alone at all. "You're giving me a life of happiness, Rose, and trust me - it's very, very much enough."

**A/N: Reviews will always be loved! First DW fanfic ever, but I've got a big chapter fic in mind these days on Rory/Amy, which is my new big OTP, so… if you want to stay tuned, I'd be very flattered! ;) I'm hoping it'll be a good one. :'D**


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